Scars and Strife
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Scars are a map to life. They plot every momentous occasion, whether physically or mentally. Only the strongest of people can face their injuries and watch their scars heal. Some let them fester and destroy. Others ignore them. The Avengers do all of that. But their scars make them who they are. And no one can deny the Avengers are the strongest of them all.


Scars are a map to life. They plot every momentous occasion, whether physically or mentally. Only the strongest of people can face their injuries and watch their scars heal. Some let them fester and destroy. Others ignore them.

The Avengers do all of that.

But their scars make them who they are.

And no one can deny the Avengers are the strongest of them all.

Bruce 

He didn't scar anymore. Not physically. The Other Guy wouldn't let that happen. But as the physical scars healed and bruises faded, his mental scars cut deeper and deeper, like knives searing into his brain.

His constant rage just made it worse. To dwell on the 'could haves' and might've beens'.

And it wasn't just what he'd lost.

It was what he'd done to others (the Other Guy had done to others).

It was _his_ fault (not his fault).

Betty.

_Harlem_.

A thousand innocents.

The guilt drowned him, suffocated him. He knew, mentally, it wasn't his fault (it wasn't, was it?) and that he couldn't control the Other Guy (even though he saved Tony, that was _him_, not him).

Until the Avengers no one had known how deep his scars ran.

And when he told them and they didn't look at him in disgust or run away from him (or run further than they did already). They stayed with him.

For the first time, in such a very long time, he entertained the thought that the scars might heal.

(But if he could control the Other Guy and all of those had been his lack of control - his fault - he knew he'd lose it.)

Steve 

He was Captain America. He was the figure spoken of in bedtime stories, when parents tried to encourage their children to behave, to become kind and helpful people.

He was a hero - the first hero.

He'd never felt like that, now more than ever.

Before it had just felt like he was doing his duty, to fight for his country. They'd enabled him to do that, but he hadn't done it for himself. He'd done it for all of those that wished they could but hadn't had the chance he had.

He'd lost Bucky – that had been his fault, hadn't it?

Then he'd been frozen in the ice for seventy years.

When he'd woken up he found he'd lost everyone else.

Howard.

_Peggy._

He had Howard's son - not that he was a replacement. But sometimes he acted just like Howard and for a moment Steve believed that Peggy would dart around the corner. And then Howard's son would speak and his words would be crude and utterly foreign.

Steve hated him for that.

He made Steve feel like a stranger in his own country.

Steve couldn't decide whether he hated Tony for reminding him of the past or for not being in it.

Thor 

He'd been brought up as the lucky one. The favoured one.

For a long time he couldn't tell the difference and for a while after he hadn't cared.

It was easy to pretend he'd deserved it - that they'd both deserved what they'd been given - when Loki was trying to take control.

He could be understanding and compassionate and because Loki was evil it didn't matter.

None of it would matter in the end.

Then he'd met Jane Foster.

With Jane he knew - truly knew - what being human meant, never mind that fact that he wasn't human himself.

Being human opened his eyes.

Being part of a team made it clearer.

The Avengers treated him just like anyone else. It made him realise that he and Loki had deserved the same, regardless of parentage. Odin had taken Loki to raise as Thor's brother but he hadn't treated him as a son.

Loki's scars were obvious to everyone.

And for Loki's - his _brother's_ - emotional pain, he blamed Loki and Odin and Frigga.

But most of all he blamed himself.

Natasha 

She didn't have many scars. Not one's you could see. She was too good for that - the Black Widow. Uncatchable.

Free.

Trapped.

She was trapped in a web, partially of her own making, mostly of others. It made her feel (on the few occasions she surrendered her emotions) more like one of the flies in her own web.

Once upon a time she hadn't cared. She hadn't cared who she killed and she almost convinced herself she didn't care about the killing.

Clint showed her how wrong she was.

And how wrong she had been.

Her mind had been twisted and pulled until all of Natasha Romanov had been stamped out and destroyed, another mindless puppet.

A puppet with such fragile strings.

Clint slowly brought her back until she cared who she killed.

She still couldn't convince herself she didn't care about the killing.

But she couldn't admit she did.

She had too much red on her ledger for that.

Clint

He was like Natasha. He didn't have many scars, despite his profession. In fact, he had less than Natasha. It wasn't that he was better than her, just that his position on a battlefield was further away.

It had been an unconscious move. He moved away from everything and for a long time he'd stayed withdrawn.

The first thing he'd taken an interest in, in a long time, was Natasha.

It wasn't because of her looks, because once even he would've admitted she was beautiful, and he didn't want to exploit her. To _use_ her (talents or otherwise).

He saw something of himself in her, a young girl, barely more than a child, who in any normal situation should be terrified by what she had just done. With _why_ he was tracking her down. But she couldn't be frightened and she wasn't.

Her time in Russia had taught her that there were things worse than death.

Clint could almost feel some of his own mental scars heal as Natasha healed. He felt less guilty but guilt wasn't the reason he'd saved her. He'd saved her because it was like looking in a mirror, a hardened teenager, lacking control over life and covered in red.

When he'd awakened from Loki's spell, Natasha was at his side. He hoped he could be as strong as her and knew she was as strong as him.

Tony

He had scars. Perhaps more than any of the others. Far too many scars, visible to the world. Some of them marked his triumphs, scars from inventions gone wrong and fixed right. Inventions that had saved lives. Scars from fights where he'd saved lives – both as part of the Avengers and just as Iron Man.

Some of them showed his weaknesses. His past. Before Afghanistan. Scars from fights he'd had in bars and clubs whilst weapons he'd created in near sobriety destroyed lives. He hated these scars.

But he knew he needed the reminders.

On some days it would be far too easy to forget, to take the cowards way out, but he'd reach for the glass and catch sight of one of the scars on his head and stop. He didn't drink to forget now.

(That was one of the few things his father had taught him. A Stark was _not_ a coward.)

He also had his arc reactor.

The arc reactor wasn't a scar but it was a symbol of one, an emptiness, a hollowness that hadn't been there before Afghanistan. But he'd also never felt more alive.

His scars represented everything to him and for a long time they'd meant more than people.

But on some days, his worst days, he'd wish he'd never had to receive them.


End file.
